Blood&Semen
by justy13
Summary: "Wolves ran through a forest at twilight. One wolf, with rust colouring on the flanks of his fur, dodged right around an evergreen tree. An image came into his mind, all the minds on patrol, actually, and the wolf let it come." little OOC, For Adults ony
1. Chapter 1, Theft of Jake

**AN; I do not own Twilight, or anything from those books.**

**Theft of Jake**

**AN; I do not own Twilight, or anything from those books.**

**Theft of Jake**

Wolves ran through a forest at twilight. One wolf, with rust colouring on the flanks of his fur, dodged right around an evergreen tree. An image came into his mind, all the minds on patrol, actually, and the wolf let it come.

He saw only long dark hair swaying on a perfectly curved bare back. The focus shifted, sliding around to the front where the peak of a dark nipple and the underside of two breasts were all that was visible. Again, the mental view shifted, travelling down the soft skin stomach past a little mole beside her navel. And then a landing strip of curly dark hair glistened between a smooth v-shape, just above a small pink nub showing moist and invitingly.

Then he saw her face as she spoke. _"I love you Paul."_

He stopped running, digging his paws into the wet ground; the wolf heaved, tongue extended, and dry gulches burst from his throat. He could feel the other two wolves stopping, too, even though they were too far away to see.

_"Jake. Paul. I'm really not gonna deal with you two patrolling together any fuckin' more. First I get wolfy blue balls from Paul. Then I'm sick from getting an accidental incest hard-on from Jacob." _The thought came as the images had, through the shared pack-mind.

_"Fuck off, Jared. She's mine, she's hot, and I love her," _Paul thought to them.

Jacob's wolf head shot up. _"Really Paul, you feeling my disgust is nothing compared to seeing my sister naked."_

_"You should be happy for us. Rachel is it for me," _Paul said, pausing, and then, _"I've been trying to tell you for weeks but you keep changing the subject."_

Jacob could feel Jared starting to say something, but Jacob cut in first. _"We're done discussing this."_

_"I'm gonna fuckin' marry her."_

_"You can't marry her yet. Paul, you have no real job. You have to lie about phasing into a goddamn wolf . And Rachel has two years left at College."_

_"Give it up Jacob,"_ Paul said. _"I want her; she wants me."_

Jacob shot back his reply without thinking. _"What if you imprint?"_

He felt Paul's anger and, from Jared's eyes, saw Paul rise up off the ground.

_"That's a low blow, Jacob,"_ Jared said, and Jacob saw Paul charging in his own direction from Jared's eyes.

Jacob phased back from wolf to man. He shook his head, untied his shorts, slipped them up his legs, and started to walk through the trees toward the sound of the waves. He looked behind him and tried to remember what part of the patrol loop Paul was on. How much time did he have before he'd have to apologise to Paul about suggesting that he might imprint, knowing Sam was one of only three wolves to ever go through that in pack history.

Jacob made it through the tree line, smelled the waves, and let out a breath. In the distance, he heard a faintly erratic splashing sound.

"Shit," he said aloud, scanning the breakers for the source of the noise. He spotted what looked like a kid, and…a wolf? They were bobbing up and down, breaking the surface of the ocean and then disappearing completely, out between the rock formations.

Jacob broke into run for the ocean.

_I could just make it to save them_, he thought.

Then several things happened at once.

First, the full weight of a running tackle crashed into his back. Jacob felt his head snap back, and his arms pinned to his sides. His feet dug too far into the wet sand of La Push and he pitched forward.

Somehow, Paul was on him, and had him turned over, onto his back, before he could get the words out about the drowning boy.

Paul's fist connected with his jaw, and his ear opposite the impact popped with exquisite pain. Another fist landed on his lips, and Jacob felt the blood spray, hot up to his forehead, down onto his chest. Through the spray, though, Jacob saw Paul drawing back, low, to swing again toward Jacob's middle.

Jacob caught the fist with both hands, but the force of it drove his own arms into his solar plexus. Paul didn't even pull the fist away, he rose up onto the balls of his feet over Jacob and pressed the fist further into Jacob's hands and stomach.

Jacob had to stop this, and soon. The boy and wolf were drowning as they fought. He did the only thing he could think to do.

He lifted his knee, hard, and sickeningly felt Paul's testicles shift inside his shorts.

Jacob raised the upper half of his body, feeling grit cling to the blood on his face, chest, and back. "Someone stuck … rocks… cliffs"

Paul didn't seem to here. He had drawn up onto his toes, then collapsed on top of Jake, clutching his groin and moaning. He looked green. He was probably going to spew.

He pushed Paul off him, hard, and watched him fly back to the tree line. Jacob rolled sideways and pushed himself up to his feet and into a run. The sand flew up, stinging his legs with each foot's digging impact. At the water, he dove forward, torpedoing into the waves with what he knew was superhuman speed.

When he came up, he was almost entirely to the rocks under the cliff, just from that first dive. He swam the rest of the way and saw the the kid's head tipped back, mouth open, and filling with water. The boy clutched the wolf's body under his chin. Oddly, the boy wasn't moving from the spot. He seemed stuck by something under the surface. The rock clefts? Jacob gulped air into his lungs, plunged his head below the surface and blinked his eyes under the water. He needed to find what was holding the boy in place. He swam forward and, at the boy's legs, felt down, grabbing at the kid's shoes.

_Those fucking laces are tangled in seaweed_, Jacob thought.

Quickly with his hands feeling the tangle, he broke the knotted clumps of seaweed and laces. Then he lifted the boy, wolf and all, out of the ocean, and he kicked off the big rocks toward the beach.

Paul, still green in the face, stood waist high in the water. As Jacob neared the shore, and Paul, he felt Paul tugging all three of them from the ocean.

"Call for help," Jacob spat.

As Paul dragged them from the breaking waves and onto the sand, Jacob felt the boy shivering against him. The wolf was still. Then, once on the beach, he saw Paul run toward the forest. Jacob looked to the wolf on one side, then to the boy on the other. The boy choked and sputtered. Jacob put an arm around the kid, and realised he should say something.

"Are you cold?" The stupidity of the Question struck him as soon as it was out.

The boy started to cry, " My doggy, my doggy, please my dog-"

Jacob looked at the wolf. Part wolf, part dog, now that he looked closely. Under the mutt's matted fur, the chest lay still: no breathing, and no heartbeat.

He didn't know what to say. Should he tell the kid?

Jacob couldn't think of a way to break it to him. So they sat in silence, and after several minutes, the boy's shivering lessened, and his crying slowed down. Jacob realised that the boy knew.

Finally Jacob thought of something to say.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Brady," he said, and he sniffed, wiping away snot with a wet forearm. "You're hot, mister."

Jacob smiled. Then he looked at the dead wolf-dog. He could have saved them both, if things had gone differently today on patrol.

No, he could have saved them both if he had been there. That's what it boiled down to. If he had got there in time, this kid would still have his pet. His wolf.

"Mister?"

It took Jacob a moment to come to grips with that. He was only seventeen. It was odd being called 'mister'.

"Yeah?"

"Are my parents going to be mad at me?"

Jacob squeezed him by the shoulders and held him there for a second. He didn't know the kid's parents. He didn't know how they'd act.

So, when he heard the sounds of the ambulance siren, he took the opportunity to avoid the subject.

He stood and waved at the approaching vehicle. When he looked down, the boy was trying to lift the wolf's body. Jacob put his hands, firmly but gently, on the boy's shoulders and pulled him away. Then Jacob bent and scooped the dead wolf into his own arms.

They walked toward the ambulance together.

Guilt for having provoked Paul, at the moment anyway, felt like a half-drowned boy.

And a wolf's corpse.

"This garage is a shit hole; no time, no damn time." Jacob ﬂipped on the light switch.

He swore to himself when he saw his own shadow. If his shadow had changed that much, what else had?

"Giant Leeches , Poor ass rez boys turning in to K9s , baby making genetic survival bonds." He thought. Then there was outside the rez."

"Bells," he said to himself, and as always, he felt the sigh that came with that name escape his lips.

Tomorrow she would be moving from her mom's house in Arizona to Charlie's for her senior year of high school .

He heard feet shifting the gravel on the path outside and getting closer.

Jacob lifted his head and sniffed. "Go away Embry; I just need some time," he said, and immediately heard the footsteps stop on the other side of the garage.

"You can't shut her out now, Jake. I mean, yeah. You can't tell her everything, but you need her, or someone," Embry said.

"She is going to know somethings off, big time. How am I not gonna explain things. Embry, I told her I loved her when she was here visiting for Christmas. Bells said it back. I was a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter and that was what…six months ago? Before I could turn into Rin-Tin-Tin, the rez patrol dog. I am not the Jake she said that to, or even the one she's known her whole life. Now I am Jacob," he said.

"Can I just come in?" Embry asked.

Jacob felt his ﬁngers curl into ﬁsts. "No," he said, and the volume of his words reverberated off the garage's corrugated metal walls. He would have been startled by his own shout…if he wasn't royally pissed off.

He couldn't believe there was nothing private anymore, not even in his own mind.

"This," he said, stretching his arms wide so that his ﬁngers almost brushed the walls, "is my fucking kingdom. I don't want to smell anything but me, tools, cars, tin, and earth. In fact, get out of the doorway. The wind is blowing your stink to me." Jacob drew his arms in, then, and sat in the middle of the ﬂoor.

What was the point of ﬁghting?

"Jake, you aren't the only one with no privacy. At least you have had Bella to call, you didn't have to cut her off and ignore her when you ﬁrst Phased, something on the outside you know?" Embry said.

Jacob heard the sudden crunch of gravel, and then a pattering of collisions on the side of the garage's siding.

Then the noises of gravel underfoot sounded again, and they were moving away from the garage. "Whatever dude, I came out to tell you that Rachel is almost done with making dinner, and Paul is over," Embry said, talking louder as he walked further away. "He asked her today; she has your mum's ring on, so look surprised." The footsteps stopped, and Jacob knew that Embry was listening for his response.

Jacob found the closest clump of earth and threw it towards his car.

Then his lips formed words. "What if does Paul imprints on someone?"

"HA HA, no one else is going to imprint like Sam, Jake-"

"It's Jacob now."

This made Jacob think of Sam. Poor fucking Sam.

From where he sat, Jacob heard Embry ﬁnish the walk to the house, and surprisingly, echoing Jacob's thoughts even without reading his mind.

"Poor fucking Sam," Embry was saying.

Jacob stared ahead, tapping the side of the plate that sat on his lap. Beside him on the couch sat his sister. Jacob couldn't make eye contact with her or Paul. 'The train-wreck in progress.'

How could they eat and kiss at the same time. What if those noodles got tangled up in their mouths? How would they sort out the tangled spaghetti? So gross, and Jacob was going to have to see the shit they got up to in Paul's mind tomorrow on patrol again.

"_Fuck my life",_ Jacob thought, forcing himself once again to look away.

He shifted in bed, trying to get the dinner images of Paul, his sister, and the spaghetti out of his head. Looking at the alarm clock, he squinted at the numbers:10:02pm.

"_Can't remember when I got in the sheets this early",_ Jacob thought.

From outside the house, he heard his sister's voice say, "I love you." Then smacking of t two mouths sliding together.

Jacob, moved his pillow over his head, and squeezed his eyes shut.

He thought of Bella.

"_Bella's laugh, her voice, her smile, her hair, her lips…yeah her lips,_ there we go," Jacob thought. He brought one of his hands down to slide his dick out of the narrow opening of his boxers; he was already dripping. Jacob moved the cum all around his dick and started to grip it, moving up and down.

"Mmmm."

"_Her lips…what does the rest of her look like? Her boobs - taking off her bra and seeing her boobs…"_

"Fuck" he said, stroking himself harder and faster.

"S_ucking on her tits, grabbing her waist. Bella touching herself. Taking her pants off, lying on his bed, spreading open her legs just for him to see."_

He spread more of his cum around his cock. He beat it hard, choking his member and feeling how lubed-up he was. _Bella, her spread legs still open, her touching the nub of nerves, and sliding one ﬁnger into herself._

His other hand groped for his catching-sock. Quickly slid the sock over the tip, still gripping his dick.

"_Her ﬁnger moving in and out of her. Then two ﬁngers," _he thought. His stomach tightened, and his whole body jerked as he came into the sock.

He threw the sock behind the bed and rolled over. Bella would be only ﬁfteen minutes drive away, starting tomorrow. He fell asleep with that thought in his mind.

**AN; No way am I doing more than once a month updates. Writing brings out anal Justy. Anal Justy went missing after College. College was a very long time ago.**

**I dedicate my First chapter to the lovely ****"Start Speaking" ****button on my crack top. I abused you to many times during this process.**

**Thank u's to Conner (such a hard-ass), and the lovely Mist and Maggie.**


	2. Chapter 2, Red is She

(An; Hi there, Here is chapter 2. *says a very caffeinated Justy* If you want to chat my Twitter is (at) Justy_13 . Tell me your from Fan Fic and I will add you. Thanks to Mist and Conner, you two rock me sideways! Again if you are under 18 please DON"T read. I do monthly updates. Ta ta )

At the edge of a forest, where trees overhung the last gas station on the way into a small Oregon town, three forms perched in the high branches of a Douglas fir.

A woman - not that she thought of herself as that, any more - leapt to the end of her branch, and thought of falling, headlong, and she wished that, when her head struck, she would feel the pain.

But she wouldn't feel the pain, and she didn't fall.

Instead, she craned her neck down at the gas station beneath her, seeing people - or prey really: just little blobs of nothing but fat and blood busying themselves. She didn't see anyone worth the trouble, though, despite watching and smelling the meaty stench of each roving body.

For just a moment, she glanced at the two men - again, only men in the loosest of definitions - sitting on the branch below her, and she checked to see if they, too, were watching the prey. James, closest to her, was looking at his own knuckles on his right hand, rubbing them with his thumb. He was trying to appear nonchalant, she knew, but the way his long hair, drawn back in a ponytail, sat on the flexed muscles of his back, she could see he was tense. Past him, Laurent pushed his dreadlocks out of his face and turned the page of the newspaper he held.

And then, past the both of them, far below and on the road approaching the gas station, she saw a red-orange car. Red-orange like her own hair. She liked red-orange, and hated it. She began to hum, and tip-toed back to the wide tree trunk to get a better view of the approaching car. Was that a woman inside? She liked women, yes she did. Very very fun fun.

When her fingers touched the bark of the trunk, part of her mind begged her to look at the patterns in the bark and see them. She didn't look. She wanted to follow the car and see if it drove into the gas station.

Another rustle of the newspaper page in Laurent's hands. It seemed loud. Everything seemed loud. Clicks of the gas pumps, and the ring of the bell over the gas station door, and smells: sickly smells, of oil spills and fumes and open toilets that never flushed.

Finally the red-orange car signalled, blinking its silent song, saying, _right, right, right, right_, and the woman hummed louder.

At last, knowing the car was indeed parking below her, she pulled her eyes away and looked at the bark. She splayed her hands on the tree trunk, tracing the words she saw. Always the same shapes. Faces. And words. Nasty words, like whore, bitch and cunt. And all around the words, the song. She saw it everywhere, now. The words escaped from her lips, breathy, and she knew she sounded crazy, but she sang anyway, because it felt _good. _"In a cavern, In a canyon, excavating for a mine dwelt a miner forty-niner and his daughter Clementine."

"I don't like the smell of ink," James said.

His words appeared in bark patterns. Ink, hate, bitch, and the song, her song. She traced the new word and sang her song still. "Oh my darling, oh my darling, Oh my darling, Clementine! Thou art lost and gone forever Dreadful sorry, Clementine."

"Victoria. Stop" James said.

_Victoria, bitch, stop and die, whore, gone forever, Clementine,_ the bark read.

She stopped, and concentrated all her thought on the people below at the gas station.

And while she concentrated, Laurent folded back the newspaper. "The smell of ink is the smell of thought, James, and I for one like to know what is occurring in the towns we visit. Like here," Laurent said, pushing his dreadlocks back again and pointing to a section of the newspaper. "_'LONE LOCAL TEEN SAVES DROWNING BOY'_. It says the boy was almost half a mile from shore when his saviour saw him drowning and swam out to him."

Victoria heard him close the newspaper. She glanced back at him and James. Laurent was smiling at James, but it didn't look like a kind smile, and he continued speaking. "And this was all made possible by a rush of adrenaline? I have seen humans and their bouts of panic; I doubt adrenaline has ever granted torpedo-like speed. Think about it, James. Do try. Something is off, here."

Before James could reply, and the tree bark could form new abuses before her eyes, Victoria sniffed the air. "Smell my lovelies," she said, and pointed down to the woman getting out of the red-orange car. "The one with the scars, smell her."

She had drawn their attention to avoid the conflict, but when she smelled the air, she _had_ smelled something new. Something musky, and sweaty, and somehow meaty. Something different, both human and beast. Something _fun_.

Victoria clapped hard and jumped up and down on her branch, shaking dust onto Laurent and James.

Laurent shielded himself from the dust, but he seemed distracted. He was sniffing the air, too.

"No, it can't be. I haven't smelled that scent in two hundred years," Laurent said.

James leapt into a crouch on a lower branch, and Victoria could hear the wood cracking in his grip.

"Its smells of a were-Wolf. This Must be why the Cullens left the area-." Laurent said.

"Sad as the moon the Cullens are gone, I was hoping to enjoy the torment I had for them but this-" pointing to the woman pumping gas. "-Should be far more fun then them Cullen's." Victoria said.

"You think the Cullens fought?" He didn't seem to be asking. "I'll tell you what happened. The Cullens sat around in there fucked up Mansion and probably talked each other to death about what they should do about the Mutt, and the all the pretty Cullens just laid down and then the mutt rip them to shreds." He paused. "But we don't get to deal with this every day, do we? Fuck it. Let's have some fun."James said.

"We should proceed carefully, when not knowing much about the beast. Like are there more than one... is that its mate?" Laurent said pointing down to the dark woman with the scars that had finish pumping gas and now rounding the back of the station.

"Careful boring, boring Dead, I want to feel" she said, as she glided down the tree watching the woman walk into a door way with a sign that said 'Ladies' . "A foot is the game." She said and watched James slip his sunglasses on and follow her down the tree,

"We will find out soon then Friend," he said looking from Laurent then to Victoria "Shall we mingle with the meat."

'Fun Fun Fun," she thought.

A big orange truck rounded a bend in the road and pulled into a gas station a girl slipped down from the cab. She was on the phone.

"I want peace… I wanted familiar things… To hear the rain outside, to snuggle under fluffy blankets -'with someone next to me' - … its too hot in Phoenix for that… Mom I do love you… you were on the road with Phil all last school year … and you are not even home still… I just kinda snapped loaded up every thing in the truck… It is reliable Jake put a new engine in it… No not mad… I did tell you were I was… messages… yours and dads… 3 days driving… I am safe… slept in the truck… I am okay… It's just 15 minutes from Forks now… I do love you. ..yes…yes I have my transcripts for next year… no you are a good mom… I do love you.. I know… okay… I will call after Cha-Dad tells me off too… Yes… Love u… Bye mom."

She shut the cab door with an 'with a grunt' fast walked towards the back of the gas station 'restroom please be here' she thought and smacked right into a man with sunglasses, 'Holy crow he's Hard as a wall-' She looked up '-gorgeous, too-' she watched him sniff her. '-gorgeous and strange' she thought.

"Sorry" she said, the man just nodded; Bella continued her fast walk to the back. 'Eureka, we have Gold, the Ladies' she opened the door to the and walked over to the toilet stall.

"Ocupado" someone said.

She crossed her legs and did the pee dance.

"Eke." she caught a glimpse of her hair in the tin paper towel dispenser over the full trash can.

The toilet flushed and the stall door opened, a woman stepped out and walked to the sink, Bella stood up from her pee dance and walked in to the stall.

She thought she recognised the woman, or knew her, except for the scars covering her right cheek.

"I'm sorry do I know you?" The woman said

Bella pictured the woman's face and tried to place it. There was definitely something familiar about her features, but Bella found it hard to not think of the diagonal scars, and the way her right eye drooped just a little in the socket. Bella also noticed that she was out of toilet paper.

" I don't know ? Bella said.

"I'm Harry Clearwater's niece." she said

"Oh.. Oh-." Bella shook her head and forced a smile on her face. "Yes I do remember. You know my dad. and make the great cookies my friend Jake is always talking about, any chances I can get the recipe?" Bella felt her smile widened.

"Oh yes, I know Jacob. And it's funny you should mention the cookie recipe. I happen to have the ingredient list with me. I'm on my way to the store. But I'd have to be on my deathbed before I share it." She laughed easily

"Do you want me to hand threw toilet paper for you,?" the woman said

"Sorry, Yes Please" Bella said. The womans hand appeared under the stall adore with a wad of paper towels.

"No need to apologies Bella, I was the one who used the last of it.

"Emily… Emily Young, I remember your name now."

Bella heard the water turn on.

"Well soon to be soon to be Uley" she said.

"Oh, you are gonna to Marry a Uley, too? Is he related to Leah's fiance? Exciting." Bella said

Bella heard another voice speak, and she startled. "Emily, what a sweet name I had a pet of that name once. It sound a little like Red Riding Hood. You know the one that got her self eaten".

Bella laugh and rested her elbow on her leg then her forehead on the palm of her hand . "-No, no it was her grandmother that got eaten by the Big bad wolf" she said threw the closed stall door.

"What do you know of dogs and food?" The woman said to Bella.

"She knows nothing" Emily said.

"Hey I know enough, My mum was crap, but she did do bed time stories" Bella said.

She heard the woman "I like her Don't you Em- "

"Bella… Tell Sam and Leah I love them" Emily said, and Bella was surprised at the tension in her voice. She sounded half choked, like her words were too big for her mouth.

Bella opened the stall door.

"Emily?"

That was weird way to leave she thought.

Bella walked to the sink and found a yellow sticky note stuck to the mirror with the Emily's cookie Ingredients on the it.

'Vinegar?'


	3. Chapter 3, Fire on the Water

(AN; Don't own Twilight. Thanks to Connor for beta-ing this chapter. X)

The forest was thick here. A rocky dirt road led off to the left of the one-lane highway. Nothing marked it. The late midday sun was still bright in the sky and it gleamed off the two cars that turned down that unmarked road. Jacob, in the front car, looked in his rearview mirror and saw Sam in the car behind him. Sam looked confused.

Jacob forced himself to breath. "It's going to be okay. I found Sam, he's okay. He doesn't know yet."

Then he said, "Shit."

His hands gripped the wheel so hard that the rubber grip surrounding it ripped open on either side of his hands. Ripped like a body might.

Jacob shifted gears and tried not to think about the word ripped again, or the way they had found Emily. He also tried not to think of the word 'pieces.'

"How am I going to tell him?"

Too quickly, he arrived at the two-story cabin. The sight made his stomach churn. The blue paint - which Emily had supervised the pack over last summer, because the cabin needed 'character' - and the big _MAXWELL HOUSE_ coffee tins that served as flower pots arranged on the porch, which Jacob had mocked Sam for endlessly, all seemed to scream, _Emily was here! She was! But she isn't any more! We found her body, and THAT screamed character, too!_

Jacob shook his head - hard - and killed the engine. All four members of the pack stepped out of the house, the blood visible on their skin and stained into their shorts, and they arranged themselves in a half circle between the gravel of the driveway and the house.

Jacob heard Sam's car door open and shut. Sam passed his car.

He paused, breathed in, and released his hands from the wheel. The ribbed steering wheel cover fell off and into his lap. Jacob grabbed the pieces, put them on the passenger seat, and got out, too, jogging to catch up with Sam.

"Emily?" Sam said, and he sniffed the air.

"Sam," Jacob said. "hang on a second." He knew what Sam was smelling. Blood. Emily. Leeches. More blood.

Jacob thought back to before he phased, when, in a baseball game, Jacob saw Embry break his arm sliding for second base. It was a compound fracture in Embry's forearm, and Jacob, playing short-stop, had almost vomited. Even before the change, it was the smell of split meat, metallic and tangy and somehow hot.

Now though, it was worse. Because they could tell _whose_ blood it was.

"Emily‽" Sam called again. He tried to push between Embry and Quill, but they grabbed him by the arms. Paul and Jared moved to hold him, too.

"Let me the _fuck_ go! Emily I'm coming!"

Sam pressed forward. Embry lost his grip and fell backwards against the porch.

Jacob hadn't known how to tell Sam. It was nothing like telling the boy his wolf was dead. So he had brought Sam here. Now, though, as three members of the pack tried and failed to hold him back, that seemed like a very stupid idea.

"Sam," Jacob said, "She's not in there, and...I didn't make it in time. We didn't, I mean."

"_I'm COMING!_"

And with that, Sam started to phase.

"Fuckin shit!" Paul said.

Quill fell, too, landing on his side against the lattice bottom of the porch.

"Embry, throw me a plant," Jacob said.

"What?" Embry said.

But Quill heard, grabbed the tin pot, flower and all, threw it to Jacob. Soil sprinkled down on them, and time seemed to go slow, too slow, and dirt was raining, and Sam was ripping out of his human form and into the shape of a beast, and things were about to get very very ugly if Jacob didn't do something _now._

He caught the tin, and slammed it down hard on the back of Sam's head. The dirt exploded out of the can, and the metal crumpled against Sam's skull with a clicking _tang_ sound that, for no reason Jacob could understand, reminded him of a screaming armadillo being hit by a car.

Sam's phasing stopped, and for half a second, they all stood there. Sam had stopped pressing forward, and he stumbled sideways. The crumpled _MAXWELL HOUSE_ tin slid off his head and hit the gravel. Blood glistened in the back of Sam's hair. And that smell. The meaty smell. The _hot_ smell, this time smelling like Sam, reached Jacob's nostrils.

And then Sam's knees buckled and he fell. Jacob caught him and lowered him to the gravel.

About a minute later, Sam opened his eyes. They had dragged him back to Jacob's car and sat him on the gravel beside the tire.

"Leeches?" Sam said simply.

When they didn't answer, Sam put his hand into the gravel and started to get up.

Jacob put a hand on his shoulder, "It was this morning. Paul, Quill, and I found her on our patrol route."

"Phase out and show me." Sam commanded in his Alpha Tenor.

Jacob felt the wolf rise up in him, ready to phase. But Jacob held his human form, and his ground. "No Sam, I won't take you to see that right now."

"Why isn't someone phased and tracking them? Or on guard in case the leeches come back!" Sam said.

Jacob could see Sam breathing deep, in and out. His skin was pale, but his cheeks were red, and blood ran down his head beside his ear. Jacob knelt beside Sam.

"Paul and Jared tracked them until the scent stopped at the ocean. It was three different leeches. The scent headed north away from La Push."

Sam put his head forward into his hands. Blood dripped onto Jacob's hand where it sat on Sam's shoulder.

Sam spoke without looking up.

"Where is she?"

Jacob saw that Paul had left and was now approaching with a bottle of Knob Creek from inside. He held it out to Jacob. Jacob took it and held it in front of Sam.

Sam lifted his head.

For a moment, Jacob thought Sam might knock it away. In a movie, he would have. Sam was the straight-laced Alpha, after all.

But he took it, and Jacob saw that his eyes were wet.

Sam unscrewed the top and took one drink, followed immediately by a second.

Jacob cleared his throat. "Well, Dad got in touch the coroner in Clallam County. They'll send the forms out to file for a death certificate. But since it happened on the res and we're saying it's a car accident so that the feds don't get involved..."

Jacob watched Sam grip the bottle neck hard, tilt it back again, then hang his head. The bottle shattered in his grip. Paul went back into the house.

"Anyway, the arrangements are made. Traditional Quileute funeral."

Sam looked up. "Is that what she wanted?" He ran his hands through his hair and leaned his head back against the wheel well of Jacob's car. "Damnit, we never talked about it. I never asked her."

Jacob stood up as Paul approached with Jack Daniels in-hand. Jacob took it and knelt again beside Sam.

"Actually, we had her last wishes."

_Just say it,_ Jacob thought. But it was hard, no matter what he told himself.

"I guess...she talked about it with Leah."

Sam laughed out loud at that, and tears streamed from the corners of his eyes.

"Of course," he said, and took a long drink of Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey.

He finished, handed the bottle to Jacob, then stood up.

"Where are we going, then?" Sam asked, wiping his mouth.

"We're cleaning you up. Then I'm driving you to the beach."

Sam nodded and walked, steadily as an Alpha should - drunk or not - through the middle of Jared and Paul, Quill and Embry.

Jacob sat in silence with the others on the porch while Sam showered inside, and no one commented on the sound of Sam's crying reaching them where they sat.

After the funeral, Jacob stood on the edge of the forest beside Emily's red-orange Geo Metro hatchback. The sun was setting on the water past the cliffs, and to anyone else, it might feel like the cool of night had come.

Jacob pulled his shirt off over his head.

"You sure you're up for this?"

Sam walked over to the pile of sledge hammers. His eyes were red. "Report says car accident. It has to be done." Sam looked at Jacob, then Billy, Jared, and Embry. Quill and his grandfather stood behind Jared and Embry, and Paul was just coming out of the forest. He had stayed behind to see the guests off and pick up the canoe launch site after the ceremony.

Sam bent and picked up the top sledge hammer. His jaw went tight, and he swung the hammer at the door of the car. The noise was tremendous.

After that first swing, everyone but Billy and Old Quill stripped to the waist and picked up hammers.

And while they swung, the canoe came into view below, burning against the water and drifting further and further away on the ocean waves. It looked small and violent.

At first Jacob wasn't sure if Sam saw the boat or not, but Sam's swings got harder after that, so Jacob guessed he did.

Jacob heard Billy's mobile phone ring and took the excuse to put his sledge hammer down. It had been a very long day. The others kept bashing, sending safety glass and pieces of plastic flying from headlights. He walked across the open rock to where Billy sat in his wheelchair.

Billy had set up call forwarding to his mobile after years of Jacob pressuring. Now it seemed like Billy had been right. If you're out, you probably don't want a call.

But he answered anyway. Maybe because it might be Emily's parents having forgot something.

"Hello."

"Hello?" said the voice on the other side. A woman's voice.

"Hello this is the Blacks," Billy said.

"Billy, it's Bella. What's that noise?"

Jacob grabbed at the phone. Billy pulled away and pointed to Sam with his free hand as if to say, _No Jacob, you're here for him right now._

Jacob didn't grab at the phone again, but he didn't move from Billy's side, either.

"I'm at the mechanic," Billy said. "What's up, Bella? You get into town okay?"

"Sorry to call so much, but is everything okay? Is Jacob okay? I've been so worried-"

"He's fine Bella. Just out with friends."

"Oh...okay, um..."

Jacob grabbed at the phone again.

Billy waved him away and spoke. "I didn't mean it like that; the Clearwaters have had a family emergency and Jacob is taking care of a few things for them."

"Is everything okay? I ran into Emily on my way into town today," she said.

At that, Jacob saw that everyone had stopped smashing the car except for Sam. Tears and sweat slicked his face. The others had stepped over toward Billy.

"You did? Where did you meet her?"

Jacob heard the last hammer drop to the rocky ground and looked up in the dusk to see that Sam had pushed through everyone and was kneeling in front of the wheelchair.

"At the gas station," Bella said, and cleared her throat.

"Did you see anything odd, Bella?"

"That's why I've been calling all day," she said. "To see if Emily was okay."

Jacob almost got his hand on the phone this time, but Billy batted the hand away and pointed. It was the _Do-that-again-and-you'll-regret-it_ pointer finger.

Jacob felt himself go hot.

"And there was a weird woman that came in while we were talking," Bella continued.

"Came in?" Billy asked.

Jacob heard the squeak. The Bella-squeak. The noise she made when she was embarrassed.

"It was in the ladies room. We were talking while we were...you know..."

"Go on," Billy said.

"Well, we were talking about her getting married and her cookies, and everything going on this summer, and then I heard the weird woman come in."

"Did you see her?"

"No," Bella said, and squeaked again.

"Oh, so you were in the..."

"Yes," Bella said quickly. "So the woman said something about little red riding hood, and that she smelled of wolf..."

Jacob felt himself go very still. He hadn't told Bella about them. She couldn't know what she was saying.

"She said a lot about the wolf, actually, except she got the story wrong, and it kind of made me worried, because she said that, in her version, the wolf gets eaten. Or I think that's what she was saying, but Emily interrupted her, and _that's_ what worried me."

Sam moved to the other side of Billy and knelt.

Bella went on.

"She said to tell Sam and Leah that she loves them and it's okay?"

For a moment, everyone was quiet.

"Hello?" Bella said.

"I'm here, Bella."

"Oh, you broke up. Anyway, when I came out, both Emily and the weird woman were gone."

Again, silence, and a piece of the puzzle fell into place for Jacob. He had wondered why Emily. She couldn't phase. Why had the leeches targeted her?

But the smell. He could smell the leeches. And the leeches could smell the wolves, even on other people.

Jacob had discussed Bella's arrival day, and she had almost come a day earlier. If she had, like they had discussed, then Bella would have smelled of wolf at that gas station, too.

The thought of Emily's body flashed into Jacob's mind, except instead of Emily's half-scarred face on the severed head, it was...

He put his palms to the sides of his head and pressed hard.

"Hello? Hello?"

"Bella, I have to go. Something came up here, too. But I'll tell Jacob that you called." And without waiting for her to reply, he hung up.

No one said anything. The wind blew, and Jacob stood. He saw the speck of fire nearing the horizon. The sun had set, and the blazing canoe, as though trying to eclipse the sun, or replace it, hung there where sky met water.

_If I had met her earlier_, Jacob thought.

"We've got to be done here," Billy said, pointing to the car.

Sam looked angry at that, then something went of him. He hugged Billy, then stood up and walked to the smashed side of the car. Paul handed him a torch that he had brought up from below, and Sam lit the cloth hanging out of the gas tank. After, he reached into the car and lowered the e-brake, then put the burning torch into passenger seat.

Sam went to the back of the car and started pushing. The others joined in, and Jacob came last and walked beside the rolling car.

At the cliff edge, the battered car teetered, then scraped loudly on the rocks along the underside, and all of a sudden, too quietly for what was about to happen, the nose of the car pitched forward and the scraping stopped.

Freefall.

And then it hit the rocks below with a crunch.

It burned for two whole minutes before it exploded.

Jacob watched Sam move to the cliff edge and ease himself to sitting with his legs hanging down. Jacob sat beside him, and Paul sat on the other side.

When the canoe disappeared, Paul twisted and looked backwards. Jacob did the same. Everyone had left.

Paul spoke, and it was more like a whisper than Jacob had ever thought possible from him.

"What is it like now, Sam?"

Sam rubbed the fingers of his left hand together, like he was signaling for the check in a restaurant. Only he kept rubbing them, his thumb sliding back and forth across his little finger, then ring finger, then middle and pointer, and back. Jacob saw then that he was lingering on the ring finger every time.

Sam hung his head. "Unreal. I still feel these fingers. I still see the sky and the ground and the water. Everything's the same. And I'll see her tomorrow. I know it. Except I know I won't, too."

Pointer, middle, ring.

Pause.

Little finger, ring finger.

Pause.

Middle finger, pointer.

"It doesn't feel real."

"Not that," Paul said. "The imprint, man. What is it like now?"

Jacob leaned back and made a cutting motion across his throat to Paul. This was not the time for solving the mysteries of imprinting.

But Sam shook his head and answered without waiting, his fingers still moving.

"I may as well tell you. You'll see inside my head the next time we phase."

Middle finger, ring.

Pause.

"Otherwise I'd never tell anyone."

Little finger, ring.

Pause.

"It's like it never happened." He chuckled, quietly and sadly, and shook his head. "If I had known that death could break the imprint without horrible consequences, I would have died so she could be free of me."

His thumb stopped. His hand closed into a fist.

"The terrible thing is that I'm not consumed by this. I feel like I lost my best friend, but not my fiancé." He drew a deep breath, and his next words all came out in a rush. "I feel free, okay?"

Jacob stared out at the water, and clouds rolling in.

Sam went on.

"I will always respect her for what she went through with me. It should have been me that died, so she could be the one feeling free."

Paul put his hand on Sam's shoulder. "You don't know if it works that way, man. What if Emily is just built like that?"

Sam looked sideways at him.

Paul kept his hand there, and went on. "So instead of a gene for blue eyes or pale skin, she got the one that lets her get imprinted on?"

Sam tilted his head to the side, picked up a rock, and threw it out into the air over the waves.

Jacob leaned forward. "Did you just talk about genetics, Paul?"

Paul tapped the side of his head. "Phasing makes all the muscles bigger, man."

Sam almost smiled at that. "Your brain isn't a muscle, Paul."

"I'm just saying," Paul said, "if you died, she might have been imprinted on by the next wolf to see her, and that could have been way worse, right? I mean, what if I had imprinted on her?"

Jacob put his arm around Sam, too. "Paul's right. If that had happened, she'd have been fucked."

"Hey!" Paul said, reaching around Sam to slap at Jacob's head. Jacob knocked Paul's hand away.

Sam stood up.

"Where are you going?" Paul asked.

Jacob stood, too. "You want to crash at my house?"

Sam shook his head.

"I'm going to head out," he said. "I might be gone awhile. Jacob, you have the pack for a few days?"

At those words, the Alpha in Jacob rose up in his chest. It felt like adrenaline, the way it made his hands shaky and yet steady, so that he could fight. It was always there, but with Sam around, his body did something to block it, or dampen it, so that it couldn't flood him.

It flooded him now.

Jacob rolled his shoulders. He cracked his neck. Then his knuckles. He was bouncing on his toes, he realized, and he forced himself to stop.

Sam started walking back towards the trees.

"Keep a close eye on him, Paul."

"And what if he orders me to go away?"

Jacob fought the urge to shiver. He would grow used to the feeling over time, the way Sam must have, but when it rose up suddenly, it was drug-like.

"I'm making you my Second, then, so you outrank him. Don't leave him alone, no matter what he says. We don't know what's going on in his mind right now."

Jacob punched Paul on the arm. "Don't worry about Rachel. I'll tell her you're with Sam. She'll understand."

"Ow, man! Easy." He started to walk after Sam, towards the trees. Paul turned and walked backwards, and he pointed at Jacob. "You better talk me up really good to her so I'm not in the doghouse with my fiancé." He raised his eyebrows up and and down, laughed to himself, and turned around, breaking into a run.

Jacob shook his head and walked away. He considered phasing and running home, but he had too much energy, and if he spent that energy running as a wolf, he'd wake up on the fucking east coast.

He picked up his shirt, pulled it over his head, and walked along the cliff edge instead, thinking.

Today was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be amazing.

"I should be with Bella right now."

He picked up a rock and bounced it on his hand.

And if she had smelled like him, either because she came the day before, or because he had met up with her before she went to the gas station?

"Fuck," he said aloud, and he threw the rock out over the cliff edge.

A single question repeated in his mind for the entire walk home. And when he reached his back door, he paused with his hand on the doorknob.

"Can I really bring her into this, knowing she could die just for being with me?"

He stood there a long time, because he didn't know. He should say no, but it wasn't that simple.

"Fuck," he said again, and went inside.

He walked through the dark hallway past Rachel's room. He saw light coming from under the door.

He paused there. Should he check on his sister? She hadn't been close with Emily, but Jacob never knew how Rachel would react to something heavy.

Jacob knocked.

"Come in," Rachel said.

"You got clothes on?"

"Yep, all grandma'ed up."

Jacob opened the door. Rachel was curled up in bed with her laptop, looking at the screen and frowning.

"You okay, Rach?"

She looked up and smiled at him. "I just thought you were my LOVER."

"Gross! Just gross." And, in an impulse Jacob didn't really understand, he responded the way he would have a decade earlier. He stuck out his tongue at her.

She laughed.

"Your soon-to-be old man is out with Sam, making sure he's not alone at Emily's house. He'll call as soon as he can."

Jacob closed the door.

"Jacob?"

He paused.

"Be a good little brother and turn off my light."

He opened the door again and made eye contact. She put on a mock serious expression, as though he had just challenged her to a staring contest.

"You really love him, Rach, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do. Why are you asking?"

"Well, you stayed up to wait for him. That's sacrifice."

"Yeah?" she said.

"Absolutely. You sacrificed your time, your beauty sleep, and...every mirror in this house."

She pulled the pillow out from behind her head and threw it at him.

He let the pillow hit his face and caught it as it fell. He laughed at thew it back to her.

"What the fuck, I'm so much better looking than you even without sleep," she said as she tucked the pillow back behind her.

"Night, Rach," he said, and he switched off the light and shut the door.

In his room, he took off his shirt and jeans and crawled into bed.

"Crap," he said, leaning over and setting the alarm. "Six o'clock."

He had to sort out the patrol. He was Alpha, now.

"Damn vamp."

His head hit the pillow, and he fell almost immediately to sleep, too tired to dream, even of Bella.


End file.
